Place and Time: Abingdon, Thursday 15 November 2018 from 19:00 for 19:30

King Charles Room, King’s Head and Bell, (10 E St Helen St, Abingdon OX14 5EA)

TITLE: The Quest for the Best Beef Replacement

Livestock is a major driver of climate change, and red meat (including beef, lamb and pork) has recently been declared as likely carcinogenic by the cancer agency of the World Health Organisation. Against this backdrop, I evaluate a range of potential meat alternatives from nutritional, health, climate change, and affordability perspectives. The alternatives include traditional replacements based on legumes, nuts, tofu and wheat-based products, and also more recent products based on algae, jackfruit, fungus-based mycoprotein, and edible insects.

Speaker: Marco Springmann

Marco is a senior researcher in the Centre on Population Approaches for Non-Communicable Disease Prevention in the Nuffield Department of Population Health, and leads the Centre’s programme on environmental sustainability and public health. He is interested in the health, environmental, and economic dimensions of the global food systems. He often uses systems models to provide quantitative estimates on food-related questions. He is currently working on a multidisciplinary project focused on the analysis and management of animal products and their substitutes called “Livestock, Environment and People” (LEAP). (http://www.futureoffood.ox.ac.uk/project/future-meat-and-dairy-fomad)